


when i look in my window

by amosanguis



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, The Night Of (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bleeding Effect, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Families of Choice, Freddy Knight is Moussa, Identity Issues, M/M, Malik is Nasir's Ancestor, but only sometimes, dubious mental health due to aforementioned brain scrambling, due to brain scrambling, tfw you and the boy you like keep getting imprisoned together, title from a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:42:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24206893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: Freddy laughs and tells Nasir that Sofia Rikken is wrong, that there’s nothing to cure – they are who they are and killing is in their blood.
Relationships: Freddy knight/Nasir Khan, Malik Al-Sayf/Altair Ibn-La'Ahad (background)
Kudos: 1





	when i look in my window

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Season of the Witch" by Donovan
> 
> Generally whenever I do fandom fusions, I try to make it so fans of one don't have to be fans of the other, but these two fandoms got _really_ intertwined. 
> 
> Fans of Ass Creed who've seen the movie: Moussa is Freddy because both are played by Michael K. Williams, I'm throwing in a descendant of Malik (Nasir Khan, played by Riz Ahmed, who I would LOVE to see as Malik if that ever comes up) because I ship Freddy/Nasir from HBO's _The Night Of_ , a show I highly recommend.
> 
> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjSNXlwmQuY) is the scene that convinced me Nasir would make an good Assassin. Also everything about: ["You got secrets don't you? And some rage."](https://amosanguis.tumblr.com/post/618118639424602112/samann98-you-got-some-secrets-in-you-dont-you)
> 
> additional warnings:  
> \--the brain scrambling is from the Animus and the identity issues come from the Bleeding Effect  
> \--brief scene of semi-public masturbation as an act of defiance  
> \--sometimes murder is okay

-z-

_And when I look in my window  
_ _So many different people to be_

-z-

“I wish I could say it’s good to see you,” Naz says, looking at the familiar face, “but it has been one hell of a fucking day.”

Before this morning, Nasir had been on his way to class— (After two years, he had somehow managed to pull his life together. It had helped that they finally found and convicted the _right_ person for Andrea’s death.) —when a speeding car had struck Nasir down. Then he’d woken up inside a sterile white room as a woman loomed over him, telling him that he’d died in the accident.

Freddy puts his arm around Naz’s shoulder, pulls him close to his side and presses an obnoxious kiss to his temple. “Nasir,” he says, “have I got some shit to tell you.”

Sophia Rikken gives him a lecture on his rage, tells him that she can cure him.

Nasir doesn’t think she can do anything for him, but he doesn’t tell her that. He _does_ say something to Freddy, though, and he laughs and says that there’s nothing to cure – they are who they are and killing is in their blood.

Freddy.

Freddy who is now Moussa but also sometimes Baptiste – kinda in the same way Naz is Nasir but also sometimes Malik Al-Sayf.

Naz can’t help them find the Apple, the Assassins appear to have gotten to it already, he’s (well, Malik’s) just there to fill in some information. It’s research. They’re scrambling Nasir’s brain for a history lesson.

No one comes out and tells him this, of course, but Naz knows how to read between the lines – reading situations and reading people have become key to his survival in recent years.

Freddy traces out the letters on Nasir’s knuckles – his touch light, as if Nasir’s skin would burn him if he lingered. The city of Madrid stretches out before them as they lean on their elbows against the concrete wall, pressed shoulder to shoulder.

“The media said it was a jailbreak,” Nasir says, voice barely above a whisper.

The news said that Freddy had OD’d in his cell and been rushed to the hospital. When he was released, the transport van had been t-boned and Freddy had been spirited away. The manhunt had lasted for months and Nasir had found himself always looking around, scanning the crowds around him, wondering if maybe, wherever Freddy had planned to go, he’d be willing to collect Naz and take him with him.

“Nah,” Freddy shakes his head, looking up to meet Nasir’s gaze, “just a good ol’ fashion kidnapping.” He leans forward. “And I’m not saying they fucked up my drugs that day, but I also wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Can do they do that?” Nasir asks, unable to help his glance at a guard.

“They’re Templars,” Freddy answers with a snort, “they can do anything.”

“What about the Assassins?” Naz asks. “As an organization? From what I can tell, they used to be pretty powerful.”

Freddy gives him a _look_ , says, “ _Used to_ _be_.” Then he smirks and something in the light of his eyes change, his words taking on an accent and Naz knows he’s not talking to Freddy, but to Baptiste, who adds, “Don’t worry, kid. Someone’s coming. He’ll give them what they’re looking for and they’ll be distracted – that’s when we’ll strike.”

Nasir holds Baptiste’s gaze for a moment before he nods and looks away.

Sometimes, Nasir forgets to use his left arm.

Malik laughs at him for days, until the bruise from the wayward baseball fades, yelling all that while that Naz should’ve at least had the wherewithal to fucking duck.

By the third day, Nasir finally yells back at him to go suck Altair’s cock and absolutely does not expect the quip: “What makes you think I haven’t?”

Nasir feels a little bit like dying.

The Freddy in this prison ( _rehabilitation center, my ass,_ Naz thinks to himself) is different from the Freddy of Rikers. He’s almost more – _carefree_ , might be the right word. Yes, his brains were being scrambled, too, but he didn’t have to worry about his fellow inmates.

Not that he really had to worry at Rikers. Freddy’s control there was absolute and backed by the baton of the guards, but it was only so because Freddy was smart – if he’d been a little more careless, a little more greedy, then he could’ve lost his little kingdom in a blink.

But here, in Madrid, there are no strings to pull and no payments to track. The guards here cannot be bought for their ideals are not rooted in a broken justice system, but in founding a world order – it’s the sum of their whole beings – all of them, not just a select, gung-ho few, but _all_ of them – and so no bribe touches them.

“If nothing else,” Nasir says, leaning into Freddy’s arm resting along the back of his chair as Naz pushes away his food tray, “I can respect that.”

It’s only the uncomprehending yet sympathetic look that Freddy gives him that makes Nasir realize he’d spoken in Arabic and, out of the corner of his eye, Malik makes a particularly rude gesture at the guard behind the glass.

Even in Rikers, there’d been a certain amount of privacy.

Here, there is none. Their rooms are under a constant guard and there are cameras in every corner of every room.

It doesn’t stop Freddy from pulling Nasir in – he still kisses Nasir the same as he always has, sweet and gentle, doesn’t get aggressive until Nasir _asks_. But Nasir wants more. Wants everything from Freddy that Freddy had been willing to give him the last time they were locked up together.

But it’s different here. The rules are different here. So they make do with heavy petting as Freddy whispers promises of what he’s gonna do to Naz once they get out.

“He’s coming,” Freddy says. “He’ll be here soon, Nasir. And after that?”

Then he bites down on Naz’s neck and Naz has to pull himself away, breathing hard and harsh, trying to find some semblance of calm as he stalks back to his room to take care of himself.

There had been a time when Naz would have been self-conscious about masturbating in front of others.

As it is, he walks into his room, tells his assigned guards on the other side of the window that he plans on jacking it and they can keep watching or turn their backs, either way, it was a thing that was happening.

None of them so much as blink at him.

Goddamn Templars.

And maybe that makes him a little bit angry because he doesn’t even cover himself with a blanket – he just pulls his dick out, spits into his hand, and starts pumping. Then _fucking_ Malik shows up and starts yelling at him about propriety and Nasir closes his eyes and does his best to ignore him, thinks only of Freddy and the way Freddy tastes and smells and feels.

They all know when Callum Lynch arrives because everyone scheduled for the Animus is told that they’ve instead been granted a few days for themselves.

Freddy shuffles their cards with an extra flair and Baptiste whispers to Naz, “It’s time. Make sure you’re ready.”

Naz still forgets sometimes, to use his left arm, but he doesn’t today.

Freddy drops his smoke bombs and Naz swings his short sword and lets loose his throwing knives as if he really has been doing this his whole life. He sees Nathan hit with an arrow and rushes to his side, fighting at his back.

When they escape, there’s six of them total – Callum, Lin, Nathan, Emir, and Freddy and Naz – and there’s thought that there’s too many of them together to make travel easy, but they make it to London anyway.

They take the Apple anyway.

They get their target anyway.

And then they disappear into the city, what little that remained of the Brotherhood in London simply opens up and swallows them down into the city’s shadows.

The important thing is that Freddy and Naz finally have a room and a bed all to themselves and no intention of wasting the night.

Freddy and Nasir train with the British Brotherhood, working in tandem with each other as they learn to build off the skills of their ancestors – taking that muscle memory from their time in the Animus and honing it.

They make vague plans of going back to America but know it to just be a dream.

They stick close to the others they escaped Abstergo with, and the six of them become inseparable. Callum takes charge, with Nasir and Freddy acting as his seconds, and he’s the one who sets them up in a converted warehouse. The other Assassins take to calling them the A6, the Abstergo Six.

Nathan and Emir disappear into the city, looking for ways to set up a semi-legal front for them to use, something that’ll make them just enough money, but not so much that it’ll draw unnecessary attention. Nasir puts his head into Freddy’s shoulder when Nathan and Emir return with carload of art supplies, trying to stifle a laugh at the _look_ Callum is shooting them.

“We are now Instagram artists,” Emir says, holding out a brand-new set of charcoal pencils to Callum.

“It’ll take a little bit to set up a client base,” Nathan admits, shrugging his shoulders, “but between the six of us, I think we can do it.”

Lin narrows her eyes as she picks up a paintbrush. Then she’s smirking.

“I think so, too,” she says.

Callum sighs, but takes the charcoal.

What they do is this: each of them sets up their own social media – complete with pictures of either their art or themselves (but never really showing their faces) and with fake names and ridiculous handles – and then a collective page.

“If people know they’re supporting a group of individuals,” Lin says, “and not a corporation, they’ll flock to us. These days, it’s all about the little guys.”

“Hashtag-shop-local,” Nasir adds, holding up the first two fingers of each hand and overlaying them so that they made the pound sign.

Callum looks confused.

“Just do as the kids say,” Freddy says, clapping Callum on the shoulder. “They know what they’re talking about when it comes to this sort of thing.”

Callum snorts and makes a hand gesture that simply means ‘go for it.’

“We’ll keep our rates low,” Nasir says, recalling his business classes, “for now. Once we build a reputation, we can increase our prices. Between the six of us, the money should be enough to keep us at least semi-independent of the Brotherhood. They’ll still need to help us with a few bills here and there, but we’ll at least be on our feet.”

“I’ll let ‘em know,” Callum says.

The crazy thing is this: _it works_.

Callum specializes in charcoal, Lin in watercolors, Nasir and Freddy in geometrics and abstracts, Emir in realism, and Nathan in—well, the point is that Nathan _tries_.

Nathan dabbles in a little of every medium and style, trying to find what works for him, but nothing quite fits until he picks up the camera. Soon, Nathan becomes their photographer – always careful of what’s in the frame of the photograph, careful not to get any defining features of themselves nor their location, but Nathan does just enough to suggest to their followers what everyone _might_ look like – and the mystery of their little collective finds itself to be just as enticing as the quality of their work.

The funds begin to come in – first as a steady stream, then as a small river.

The warehouse, once barren with but a few mattresses on the floor, is upgraded.

They each stake out their rooms and erect plywood walls around them, they get real beds; the communal spaces are filled with real furniture – couches and a large dining room table that fits them all plus a few more, for when other Assassins stop by. Their warehouse quickly establishing itself as an Assassin Bureau just like the days of old.

They rotate kitchen duties and split the chores evenly, whenever someone is bogged down filling commissions, the slack is picked up without complaint. They each still suffer from the Bleeding Effect, but their time out of the Animus has eased some of it – their brains less scrambled then before.

Still, it happens.

Lin is the one who finds Callum arguing with the floor in Spanish, and she sits with him quietly until he breaks out of it. Then she and Freddy both help him to his room where he can nurse the resulting migraine in peace.

Back in their ancestors’ days things like intel-gathering included a little breaking-and-entering, pickpocketing a messenger, or maybe some eavesdropping. These days, hacking into emails and a cell phone’s GPS could net just as much information and more. But there’s still use for the old ways, and the A6 uses a combination of both old and new, their faction quickly rising to prominence amongst the Brotherhood for their skill.

The days become split between their day jobs and their jobs as Assassins working to uncover Templar plots. They dress themselves as any number of the blue-collar, just-passing-through-sir worker bees no one looks at twice. All of them except Emir, who specializes in decoding the secret messages the others bring to him. He’s proficient enough in breaking into security systems, but there are others in the Brotherhood who are better – so he lets them do it and sets himself to going through whatever it is that they find.

After a day of going through trash and another spent trying to put shredded documents back together, Nasir finds himself almost longing to go into the Animus, to take that trip back to a simpler albeit deadlier time as Malik (Nasir reminds himself that even Malik had had a day job, working as cartographer to justify his Bureau’s existence in Jerusalem and also served as a source of legitimate income for the Brotherhood).

But the work allows Nasir to prove himself to the organization and he and Freddy steadily climb rank – working their way from _Soldier_ to _Disciple_ to _Mercenary_ to _Warrior_.

The British Brotherhood uses the ranking system established by the legendary Ezio Auditore of the Italian Brotherhood. Though Ezio’s ranking stopped at _Assassin_ , today that one rank is broken into three sub-ranks – _Assassin I, Assassin II,_ and _Assassin III_ , with _III_ being the highest, before moving onto _Master Assassin_ , who would be accountable to no one but the Council of Assassins. In all of Britain, there were only ever five Masters at a time, each of whom managed their own geographic areas.

It was unenviable work – mostly consisting of paperwork and training plans and, believe it or not, a lot of fundraising.

Nasir wanted it.

But first, he eyes the next rank, _Veteran_ , hungrily. It was rank unavailable to him for at least a year and he forces himself to listen when Freddy tells him that it’s okay, that they have the time. Naz finally acquiesces and lets Freddy kiss his pout away.

Freddy himself is more settled in his skin and Nasir wonders if this is what he’d been like before everything – before boxing, before the bodies found, before Rikers. The man is relaxed and almost _comfortable_ in the warehouse-turned-Assassin Bureau, settling into work as both an artist and an Assassin with ease.

Even the days where he’s more Baptiste, Nasir is thankful the ancestor is more charming than anything. But there’s still a trickster-like side to Baptiste, like he’d poison you just to see if you’d notice, so Nasir, though indulgent, doesn’t let his guard down.

Altogether, it takes months and the work is tedious, but the Templar connections are finally laid bare before them.

Freddy whistles as they prepare.

There are six targets, and everyone in the A6 is assigned one with the main goal being to strike all at once – not just removing one cog, but to dismantle the whole machine at once. Not just a warning shot across the bow, but a shot aimed for the heart.

The British Brotherhood acts as support and extraction – there would be police patrol units or even tour buses that would pick them up when the deeds were done.

If they’re successful, the Brotherhood has promised each of the A6 the full rank of _Assassin I_.

Nasir adjusts the straps on his hidden blade and thinks about the day in Rikers Freddy killed for him simply because he asked for vengeance for the kid who couldn’t protect himself.

Naz’s target is a high-profile lawyer who makes sure his clients get away with a continued poisoning of the environment. When the time is right, and Naz gets the signal, he pulls his hood up and slips into a conveniently open window – winking at the janitor as he passes, a young novice who nods her head in return before she jerks her head subtly at an office door just down the hall.

The lawyer is arguing with someone on speaker, that someone sounding an awful lot like Freddy’s own target, and Naz smirks at that. He keeps smirking as the lawyer whirls around, hearing Naz enter, and his mouth is still open, still open, still open as blood dribbles out. Then, with a _snk_ , the blade is sheathed again and Naz eases the lawyer down into his chair, the man’s head bent as if in prayer.

The voice on the other end of the speaker has stopped their own shouting and Nasir blows a silent kiss to Freddy at the other end (he wants to say something, but he has no idea if the call may be recorded – either by his target, or Freddy’s, so the silent kiss is all he dares).

Carefully, Naz wipes the blood from his face before he leaves the office, closing the door silently behind him, before walking casually out of the building.

All of the targets that night are successfully eliminated and the Templar hold over England is broken. The media stirs up a frenzy, but the Assassin contacts within that particular beast quickly rise to the occasion and take control, spinning it to focus on the crimes of the dead, saying that seeds sown long ago had finally been reaped.

The Templars scatter and go to ground, but it’s too late – the Assassins have the scent.

Naz is handed a few more names and, with Freddy at his side, they get to work.

It was time for the Assassins to rise once more.

-z-

End


End file.
